A dwelling among the flock (Part 3)

The present Chancery building behind the Cathedral initially served as the bishop’s and Cathedral priests’ residence and offices. - Archived photo

Prior to the dedication of the present Corpus Christi Cathedral rectory in September 1979, the clergy of the parish had their offices and living quarters in the present Chancery building behind the Cathedral church. However, possibly only older Catholics may remember that the building was intended by Bishop Emmanuel Ledvina to serve also as the episcopal residence along with diocesan offices.

At the time of the dedication of the new Corpus Christi Cathedral in July 1940, Bishop Ledvina had already requested the same architect and contractors—Charles Lester Monnot of Oklahoma City and Walsh & Burney of San Antonio—to design and construct a new residence nearby to the Cathedral to serve both the bishops and the Cathedral clergy for the future.

The initial plans were drawn up in 1940, but the demands of World War II meant the availability of materials and construction workers—who were in military service—was diminished. In addition finances for the diocese, which was still paying for the new Cathedral, were also strained. The project had to be postponed.

Meanwhile in order to keep watch over the new church on Broadway and Lipan, the Cathedral clergy would take turns traveling from their residence at 804 N. Tancahua to spend the night in the room above the new Cathedral’s priests’ sacristy.

Multiple times the architect was asked to revise the original plans for a new residence, and the final changes came in 1947 when the war was over and Bishop Ledvina was approaching his 80th birthday. The bishop wanted to complete this project prior to his retirement.

It became his final residence as active bishop and then as the retired bishop of Corpus Christi. The building was sufficiently complete that Bishop Ledvina began moving in by late November 1948. In a letter to the former caretaker of the Cathedral property, Toni Kimper, he complemented the work of Kimper’s successors, Ed and Annie Machacek, who served the Cathedral faithfully for the next 20 years while residing in the apartments above the Cathedral garages.

The Bishop invited Kimper to check out the new facilities and reported that he had just finished moving “most of my chapel furniture to the chapel in the cathedral above the priests’ sacristy.”

Bishop Ledvina was only in his new residence a few months when his retirement and the immediate installation of his coadjutor bishop—Bishop Mariano Simon Garriga—was announced on March 15, 1949. The local newspaper noted that Bishop Ledvina had just turned 80 on Oct. 28, 1948 and that he had served as the chief shepherd of the Diocese of Corpus Christi for 28 years.

At his arrival, the diocese covered 22,000 miles and had only 32 priests. Upon his retirement in 1949 there were 134 priests. He had built 55 churches, 37 schools, five major convents, 24 sisters’ residences and 50 rectories. Bishop Ledvina resided at the new episcopal residence until his death in 1952.

Like the former residence built by Bishop Nussbaum in 1915, the new structure housed offices of both the bishop and the Cathedral clergy. However, it also prompted his successor, Bishop Garriga, to seek a separate dwelling to serve as his residence while he maintained his diocesan offices at 620 Lipan Street.

The entrance to the Chancery was through doors fronting Lipan Street while the entrance to the Cathedral parish offices were at the top of a stairway on the east side of the building, opposite an outside stairway leading to the Cathedral church sacristy. Bishop Ledvina even had an enclosed walkway extending from the floor of his living quarters to the second floor sacristy of the Cathedral where he had a private chapel for prayers and daily Mass. The 1949 city directory notes that Bishop Ledvina and Bishop Garriga as well as Father John F. Basso (pastor of the Cathedral) and his associates claimed 620 Lipan as their residence.

A delegation of priests in procession from the Chancery to the Cathedral for installation of Bishop Garriga as bishop of Corpus Christi. - Archived photo

Probably, Bishop Ledvina gave the best description of the new facility in a letter to Bishop C. E. Byrne of Galveston in 1948. He described the arcade bridge from the residence to the Cathedral, his private chapel above the priests’ sacristy and the many rooms. He noted that the structure was practically fireproof, with concrete and steel beams. The basement floor included a laundry room, boiler room, kitchen cellar and wine vault, and a clergy recreation room that also hosted the clergy assembling for solemn Masses at the Cathedral.

His two rooms on the second floor near the arcade bridge to the Cathedral were next to the room reserved for pastor emeritus Msgr. John J. Lannon. Father Basso resided across the hall on the same floor. The residence also provided a room for the housekeeper with an encased porch to serve as a sewing room. The top floor housed the other clergy of the parish, a library and more rooms for house-help. The bishop expressed his wish to get sisters to help in some of the domestic work.

The first floor with the separate Chancery and Cathedral entrances contained the rectory reception room and two instruction rooms, the dining room, butler’s pantry, a small house-help dining room, the general kitchen with its own spacious pantry and off the kitchen an encased rear porch accessible from rear stone steps.

The bishop estimated the cost at $200,000 and noted that he already had $175,000 available. In that same letter of February 1948, Bishop Ledvina was already anticipating the building of what would become the new Incarnate Word Convent and girls’ high school. His hope was to help cover much of the expense for these projects through the sale of “the old cathedral block”—the site of the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Incarnate Word convent and the school built by architect Charles Carroll, bounded by Leopard, N. Tancahua, Antelope and N. Carancahua Streets.

However, those projects remained for Bishop Garriga to complete. Meanwhile, Bishop Garriga began a new tradition by purchasing a residence removed from the work of the Chancery and Cathedral that afforded him some privacy while providing room for visiting prelates.

The final building project of Bishop Ledvina has stood the test of time, and even today continues to house the diocesan offices dedicated to an increasing variety of ministries in a rapidly expanding Catholic community in south Texas.

(Editor’s Note: This is Part 3 of a continuing series on the residences of the bishops of the Diocese of Corpus Christi.)